Application areas

Application areas

QconCAT technology is a valuable tool for research projects where protein quantification is essential. Furthermore, using QconCATs for obtaining quantitative data of protein amounts also allows comparison of protein levels from heterogenous assay environments or between different laboratories.

Proteomics research

Protein composition of subcellular particles can change in response to a variety of stimuli. Absolute quantification approaches in proteomics automatically yield the stoichiometries of the proteins in the analyte. After prior isolation of subcellular particles, protein complexes or multimeric proteins, QconCATs facilitate quantification of changes in stoichiometry in response to stimuli. QconCATs also allow to absolutely determine changes in protein expression within specific intracellular pathways in response to certain environments and stimuli, the distinction and quantification of proteins and their isoforms and the identification and quantification of post-translational modifications.

Discovery and validation of new biomarkers is one of the main objectives of contemporary medical research. Thousands of disease associated proteins have already been described. It is also acknowledged that no single molecule characterizes malignant state but protein profiles, also named biomarker panels.
Biomarker panels usually consist of 5 to 50 protein candidates and multiplexing tests are essential for their validation. However, antibody-related assays still remain expensive and time consuming and most of them are generated to measure 1-5 proteins.
Modern methods based on mass spectrometry are recognized to be more sensitive and efficient. QconCAT technology is therefore an elegant solution for your biomarker discovery and validation projects.

Clinical studies

Clinical studies involve the investigation of hundreds of biological samples and the analysis of multiple proteins in each single sample. Protein quantification from biological samples before, during and at the end of clinical studies is employed to support patient selection, monitoring disease states, progression and study outcome. However, protein quantification remains a challenge. Especially when no specific antibodies are available and therefore need to be developed, protein quantification will be a long term and expensive project. Also, modern diagnostics tend to apply less invasive methods and often need to deal with very small sample amounts. QconCAT technology circumvents these problems. Furthermore it renders clinical studies data to be comparable and reproducible between laboratories, clinical study sites and even cross-globally.

Drug discovery and toxicology

The main focus of pharmacology research is the identification of molecules that are potentially effective for disease treatment and have less harmful effect on normal physiology. Biomarkers identified with the help of proteomics are used for drug discovery, as far as proteins appear to be the main drug targets.

Up to hundred proteins are involved in different pathways in normal and malignant physiology. Numerous screenings are done in vitro and on experimental animal models to identify the efficacy or toxicity of potential drug candidates. Multiplex assays are an essential tool to demonstrate a quantitative correlation between drug action and pathological event. Investigation for drug–response or drug-induced toxicity is performed on samples from different species and is usually measured in kidney, liver, heart and nervous system.

Our contribution:

We provide absolute protein quantification service to medical and life science research laboratories.

QconCAT as a custom-made polypeptide

Based on the requirements of your analysis, we produce an isotope-labeled QconCAT protein which you can use as control kit on your mass spectrometry instrumentation to perform absolute protein quantification of your samples.

QconCAT full service

We offer a full service where we create the QconCAT and perform the protein quantification of your samples in-house if you are not equipped with an appropriate instrument platform or want to save time and resources.

Service advantage

Our team of experts has a vast practical experience in bioinformatics, molecular biology, gene synthesis and quantitative proteomics. Working with many complex quantification assays in various research areas we gained a thorough technique competence. Confiding us an implementation of your protein quantification project will save you time and efforts and will result in high-quality data for your publication.